Humor is a bit like a rocket launcher--it looks easy enough to use, and in the hands of someone who knows what they're doing, can be remarkably effective. However, if an untrained civilian tries to pick one up and use it, they usually find that it's not quite as easy to use as they thought...and problems and unintended consequences are bound to ensue.
By now, most of you have likely read the (rather uncomfortable) Mark Williams piece that has generated some controversy around the Tea Party movement over the weekend. Williams initially defended the piece as "satire" before clamming up and stating that he will make no further comment to the media to defend it. Meanwhile, pretty much everybody who is anybody in the Tea Party movements, the Conservative movement, the Republican Party, or Western Civilization has disassociated themselves from Williams.
I read the Williams piece as well, and I did recognize it as satire...really bad, unclear, and shitty satire, but satire nonetheless. I get (or at least, I think I get) the point that Williams tried to make--that the polcies advocated by the NAACP and the Democratic Party thorugh the 20th Century have done much more harm than good to underprivledged Americans of all races, including African-Americans. Unfortunately, Williams did a God-awful job of trying to make this point. What resulted was a piece that was almost sure to be fertile ground for those who are unable (or unwilling) to see the subtext of such a satrical piece without having it spoon-fed to them. It ended up like the literary equivelant to an SNL skit that is supposed to be funny, but just ends up being an 8-minute trainwreck of unfunny overkill that you just wish would end. Yep..."Copier Guy" has just come back to life...
The result? Some raw meat for the Mainstream Media and MSNBC (and they've been in dire need of some red meat as of late, considering that the President they "smoke and mirrored" into office is becoming more and more unpopular and less trusted by the American people every day--in fact, some recent polling shows that Obama currently trails most potential GOP Presidential canidates for 2012, and is tied with Sarah Palin: http://hotair.com/archives/2010/07/15/ppp-obama-palin-tied-4646-in-2012-polling/ ). Now, for about the next week, the MSM will have ample opportunity to focus the narrative of discussion exactly where they want--on the "rampant" (read: overblown, over-reported, and virtually non-existant) racism within the Tea Party movement. Now we're going to have to hear about the "racial epithet that never was" on Capitol Hill during Obamacare weekend all over again. We'll be spending the next week being questioned (again) about the isolated racist signs at a couple of rallies over two years ago. Not to mention that Jesse Jackson & Al Sharpton will have yet another opportunity to tag team the MSM with their "America is racist, unfair, horrible, and icky-poo" rhetoric (which at least has to give Cleveland Cavs Owner Dan Gilbert a sigh of relief...), all while Rachel Maddow, Anderson Cooper, Keith Olbermann, or whomever sits on the other side of the desk while nodding their heads and looking "concerned".
Meanwhile, we're going broke, many of us are out of work, our borders are unsecure, and Militant Muslims are trying to kill every last one of us at every opportunity...but instead of focusing on these real issues, the MSM will be spending the next week focusing on an ill-concieved and horribly executed piece of satire that could almost, kind of, sort of, nearly, but probably not really be considered "racist" (and even then, only if you were brain dead enough to take the piece at face value).
All because Mark Williams tried to step out of his element and attempt to be a humorist.
Memo to any future Mark Williams' out there--leave the parody and satire to Rush Limbaugh and Paul Shanklin (or, might I humbly suggest, yours truly)...they're much better at it than you are. Remember, the Left in America has no collective sense of humor--so it's generally not a good idea to use humor to communicate with them. They generally won't understand it, and as we've seen this weekend, the results can be disasterous.
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